


The World According to Eye-Boy

by NotQuiteHydePark



Category: Generation X (Comic), New Mutants (Comics), New X-Men: Academy X, X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Bartenders, Cats, Gen, Krakoa, School, Tourism, Video & Computer Games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:21:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28858041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotQuiteHydePark/pseuds/NotQuiteHydePark
Summary: See Krakoa as it was meant to be seen.
Relationships: Cessily Kincaid/Roxanne Washington, Danielle Moonstar/Rahne Sinclair, Douglas Ramsey/Warlock (New Mutants), Elizabeth Braddock/Frederick Dukes, Remy LeBeau/Rogue
Comments: 7
Kudos: 17
Collections: X-Plain the X-Men X-change Winter 2020-21





	The World According to Eye-Boy

Yes, I really am that nice. But also I’ll just say it: Krakoa seems too good to be true. Maybe it wouldn’t seem that way if I lived here full time, but Monday through Friday I’m off being Eye-Spy with X-Factor. I don’t mind seeing the world—I’d better not mind seeing it, given my power—but all the crime scenes and the under-the-table manila envelopes and the ambulances and the hearses the baseline humans who tell lie after lie, lies I can see right through… it’s a lot. At least I can live here on weekends. I get to keep my moped, too, though I have to be careful how fast I ride it along these slim winding hill paths. Not everybody can see to get out of the way.

Not everybody can see what’s going on all around us, either. I know Polaris and David keep records of missions, so I don’t have to keep a diary any more on weekdays, and frankly I come home exhausted from those things half the time—the other half I give tours for mutants who are deciding whether to move here. Nobody knows the troubles I’ve seen. Or the tribbles, either: did you know that most of Star Trek: The Original Series was real? there’s a whole warehouse full of the things on Atlantic Krakoa—sometimes Proteus eats them, gently fried… it’s possible he, as a Star Trek fan, simply created them—he’s a creative guy.

Sorry, I get distracted pretty easily. Wandering eyes, right? But so the point is that I decided to keep on with my diary, but only on weekends, so the inconsequential, neato parts of Krakoa, the ones that don’t get in the mission reports—they deserve words too. A thousand, at least. I’ve never been great at pictures.

Here I am at the Green Lagoon. Yes, it’s a bar. Yes, it’s barely brunch time. Yes, I’m too young to be drinking this early. I can’t even drink legally in the United States, and I don’t really like day drinking. Maybe when I’m Logan’s age. Yes, that’s a virgin Mary, with a beef jerky stick alongside the celery. Really I’m here to get to know Fred, because there are some things about him I can’t tell just by looking.

You know how a lot of us got trapped for a couple of months in an alternate reality constructed by Nate Grey and it had no prejudice of any kind and Kurt was a super-famous movie star but it kind of sucked? Even though I learned to ride my moped? I think Fred liked it there. He kind of fell in love with Betsy Braddock and it was absolutely mutual. I can tell from the way his eyelids move and his breathing changes when he talks about her. I don’t see them as a monogamous public couple on Krakoa but I think Krakoa only has one monogamous couple anyway. It seems super-unfair to Fred that the love of his life happens in an alternate dimension and then she gets this super-difficult job that takes her away into other alternate dimensions and then a chaotic neutral lady with magic sword powers arranges for her to get shattered into so many pieces I can’t even see where they went. Maybe someday.

The point is that Fred is a really good guy when he’s not being mocked by jerks, and he’s apparently just a cracking terrific bartender. I can see what other people think of his mixology. Logan and Remy and Emma, for example, who should know, and they’re nearly in awe. Even at brunch. Sebastian Shaw once insulted Fred’s knowledge of whisky, which tells you how threatened Shaw felt—he hasn’t come back. And this Virgin Mary is absolutely delicious. As is his mustache. He could do this all day every day if he got Betsy back.

It’s called the Green Lagoon because the overhanging vegetation—palm and xiqa and exegesis trees—cast all this green shade. Without the exegesis trees the lagoon would likely shine bright robin’s egg blue.

There’s a special tree with five trunks that contains the extra fancy liquor Fred, as the bartender, can handle: the Green Lagoon has electrobotanical fields that prevent liquor theft. They even keep out Quentin.

Fred’s got his own house, too: it’s an attached house, like most of them. He’s got a map of the Bronx on the living room wall, one from maybe the 1920s, with all these crosshatchings and tiny squares where the future New York City subway would be. He likes to say he’s from the Bronx, which is technically true, but it’s Riverdale. 

Next to Fred’s house—don’t worry, I’m not describing every individual dwelling on Krakoa, just a few of them—is Chez Gwenpool. The place is brand new but oh boy does it need de-cluttering already: there’s a pile of clothes in the bedroom that she must just dig though every afternoon when she gets up, and a rack with knee pads and grip shoes for her skateboards, and like twenty skateboards on slantwise shelves in the back room, and all six rooms have wide white and pink stripes. It’s like looking inside a bubble-gum bubble, if the bubble-gum listened nonstop to skate punk. She used her powers to rip out the kitchen fixtures, because she always just gets takeout, and put in like five gaming consoles, three gaming chairs, and a six-dimensional shelf for her comic books. She’s probably the only full-time resident of Krakoa with a substantial comic book collection. It’s mostly nonfiction—I think she’s got everything every published about the Avengers, for example, which is even more than I can read. Quentin’s in one of those soft gaming chairs half the day, but I don’t think he ever stays the night. And no, they are not the monogamous couple I mentioned. I’ll get to them.

Now I’m looking at the Akademos Habitat. It’s… well, it’s the school part of the X-Men now. When I think X-Men I still think school. Because that’s how I encountered them first. When we started living on Krakoa Erik and Kurt and some of the other big deal adults had this idea that we wouldn’t need education in any formal way. “All are students, all are teachers.” That was the slogan. I could see through that one in about ten minutes. So could Emma. The teens weren’t even learning about safer sex. I waited till they were out of earshot, though not out of sight, and spoke to Xi’an and Illyana about the lounging around, the property destruction, the frustration David felt when he came up close to the teens and realized how little they knew. There’s a place called Summerhill in the south of England that ran on “all are teachers, all are students” lines for decades. It only works with the right kind of adult oversight. Which none of us can provide.

So we have classrooms now- open-plan ones with tons of light, and everything’s an elective, once you turn twelve. Really young mutants have their own habitats, run by Jen and Jae, who you’ve probably never seen, since they don’t really have adventures. Jae’s a small-scale healer, like Josh but for boo-boos; Jen’s mutant powers involve high-speed math but she’s happier teaching kids. Basic language arts stuff comes to each young mutant telepathically on immigration, through Professor X, who’s been teaching languages that way for years. If you want English or French or Russian, make an appointment with him. If you want calculus or Pacific Rim history or European mythology or animal biology, we’ve got the OG New Mutants for that.

Also swordplay. Really a lot of swordplay. There’s an entire outdoor instruction area with a stone floor and first aid kits built into the “stones” around the edge of the ring, just for swordplay. The Soulsword has an ultraviolet signature you can see from across the whole island, if you happen to be me. I’m OK being me. (I once had a cool conversation with Kate about being the least traumatized mutants on our particular teams. I ended up blinking back tears. “Stay away from the Peters and you’ll be fine, kid,” she said, in her new occasional piratical brogue. Of course she knows I’m bi. But I’m not into Peters.)

I like seeing the classrooms on Saturdays, when there’s no classes. Kids hang out there in pairs and quartets, because…. they like school. That’s something I’ve rarely seen. (Yes I did see Cessily and Roxanne. But not on purpose. Do you know they’ve moved in together? Cessily said we could save her old bedroom, which is kind of Goth, for Chamber. If he ever comes back. Miss that guy.)

There’s parts of the main island I really like showing visitors, but that don’t show up in mission logs, because they’re not very significant to politics or military or pirate adventures. One’s the amphitheater: south of the Akademos Habitat and downslope from the Arena there’s this space with a hanging roof—the roof is wood, the seats are soft pseudostone—that Doug persuaded Krakoa to carve out of itself: we use it for outdoor concerts. 

You know who’s a really good violist? James Proudstar. He has been known to cover Metallica songs, for an audience of dozens. David and Doug and Rahne once set up a concert there for a kind of music called filk. I had a tour group on the other end of the island at the time. I’m still not sure I understand what filk is. I think it involves making fun of Magneto?

We’ve been trying to book a Lila Cheney acoustic gig since before Sam moved to space. No luck. Illyana did get us Lzzy from Halestorm though. You should see her fingers move.

Between these big poplars under the obsidian arch is the Alley of Necessities. Like if you break your glasses late at night, or you need extra hair ties, or a claw clipper (they’re like nail clippers but more intense—I’ve seen Dani use them on Rahne, it’s a lovely grooming ritual). Three tropical groves in a row, each as well stocked as a Unichem or a Walgreen’s. You take what you need. I make sure it’s well-stocked with eyedrops. And allergy meds. There’s no ragweed on Krakoa but I get around.

There’s almost no recreational shopping here—no bookstores, no vintage garment district, no spice shop, no optician-- because the gates can take you with a few klicks to most of the shopping districts you’d want to visit: New York, Toyko, etc.. If you want bespoke clothes you can visit Atlantic Krakoa and Jumbo’s workshop. In theory. There’s quite a wait. The man only has four arms, and you should see his backorders. Imagine if we’d waited longer to resurrect him! And if you want fancy or exotic foods, you can, in theory, visit Saucier.

Or you can ask Doug to ask Krakoa to concoct a substitute. Krakoa does pineapples really well, and tomatillos and pears. If I want reliable feijoas, however, I pretty much still have to go home. Same for venison. Or lamb. I’m hoping we can get a gate set up at the top end of Cuba Street in Wellington, or maybe the Banks Peninsula. When I close my eyes I can see it now. (Yes, thank you, I do sometimes close my eyes. But I don’t close all of them at once.)

Oh, here’s something else I rarely show the visitors: you know the low-lying space between Hellfire Bay and the Arbor Magna? The fields? That’s where we grow the medicine. There’s actual farm labor. We’ve got enough people that the labor’s almost fun, like regular exercise—more like everyone who can do the work has a once-a-week visit to a pick-your-own orchard. Once Northstar did his share in five minutes, just to demonstrate that he could. Kate said something about classic socialist keyboots when she saw it, but she was in such a hurry I wasn’t sure what she meant. Maybe it’s a kind of boot you wear for low-lying farmwork, like we do with the antibiotic cabbages. Have to look that one up.

Did you know we have a video arcade? It’s weirdly lit (we’re working on it) but pretty much every classic standup game from the 1980s is there, plus arcade versions of all these immersive PlayStation things invented for my generation. It’s got all these bleep bloop sounds and fluorescent lines and padded consoles so you don’t hit your elbows on stuff. There’s a booth where you can just go inside and play Zelda games and another just for World of Warcraft. I am 100% sure that Paige Guthrie has made a very good friend that way. The whole arcade takes up maybe a New York City street block. 

Unfortunately the walk-in arcade exists only on Fridays through Sundays and only when Warlock’s on the island, since it is Warlock. Yes, I know. If you’re worried about spending hours or days inside a living being, maybe you shouldn’t be living on Krakoa. Once you stop worrying the games are awesome. Instead of the classic bad-tempered guy in the center booth giving out tokens and quarters, there’s Doug, just reading a novel, or playing speed go, or taking a nap among his boyfriend’s circuit-laden pillows. Or gaming. He really likes Breath of the Wild.

Every Wednesday and Sunday night there are tabletop roleplaying games underneath the big fork-shaped trees east of the Adorable Cluster (north of the Grove). Xi’an runs a game about gossip and romance in England with rules called Powered by Jane Austen. There are many eight-sided dice. I keep meaning to play.

Anole’s a regular in that game. So is Dust. Jae joined last week. One thing you probably know about Krakoa is that we have thousands—at this point tens of thousands—of citizens who don’t show up in adventures. Most of them have non-combat powers. Like boiling water, but only a gallon at a time, and only when it’s still and visible. Or psionic eyelashes. They’re still mutants Krakoa is for all mutants! I’ve started hanging out at the beach on the regular with Estelle Dangarembge, who is a crossword puzzle creator from Botswana. Her power is that she can put anything in alphabetical order instantly. Gwenpool wants her to work on Gwen’s comic collection, so we can know for real whether “Uncanny Avengers” belongs under A or under U. Estelle keeps putting it off. 

What a lot of visitors don’t realize is how many Krakoan citizens don’t live here full time. That’s why we don’t need high-rise buildings like Singapore. A lot of us—especially the ones who are less involved in adventures—use the gates to spend a lot of time here, but keep their places in Portland or Shanghai or wherever. Yes, there’s a gate in Jerusalem, and yes, that has political implications, and yes, we are absolutely working on making the gate accessible from both sides of the Green Line. When I stare in that direction long enough I can see the Jerusalem Gate. And the barbed wire. It hurts just to look at. Krakoa is for all mutants.

South of the Cluster and north of Bar Sinister there’s this redwood grove. Doug asked Krakoa to generate redwoods and the island just did it in about two weeks. The butch mutants have these monthly lumberjack contests there—climbing trunks, chopping wood (it grows back), rolling logs down to the beach. Logan always comes in second.

Gambit and Rogue have their own place, with a projecting balcony overlooking a pool, and Gambit finally brought his cats from New York. And his cats from New Orleans. “Gambit not Gambit wit’out les chats, mon homme!” he said. “Specially dis petit chat, right here.” And he reached out with his fingerless glove to scritch this tiny orange kitten under the chin, while picking the kitten’s gray brother up with his other hand and depositing him on the cat tree under the roof slats on the roof of their boxy house. I just broke down and made cooing sounds, and I was watching from a mile away. Imagine if I had been up close. 

Yes, there’s a veterinary practice on Krakoa. A small one—two rooms and a recovery area—but that’s really all they need. Healing sick pets was about the only thing that was going to bring Josh and Rahne back on speaking terms, after what happened between them, but it worked. They’re older and less stupid now.

Every day somebody asks me to find a mutant they haven’t seen for a while. Half the time I can. I just wait for a crowd scene. I’ve been having trouble finding Chamber, though. 

When I think about introducing our island nation in writing I always think about all the things a nation’s supposed to need: diplomacy, foreign policy, a means of defense (check); a seat of government; an educational system; recreation (check); its own fashion (hey, Jumbo!) and food and drink (Saucier and Fred are working on it); internal transportation (we walk, or fly, or bamf); and…. almost all the commerce we could want is handled offshore, through the Hellfire Trading Company wholesale, or—for personal retail wants-- through the gates. 

We’re almost like one of those tiny vacation islands that happen to have a few tens of thousands of rich citizens. Except it’s a very, very powerful, sentient island, with more citizens every day. And some of us sleep on the moon.


End file.
